Determinant of a real skew-symmetric matrix is square of an integer

A proof by induction is given in David J. Buontempo, The determinant of a skew-symmetric matrix, The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 66, No. 435, Mar., 1982, Note 66.15, pages 67-69. If you have access to jstor, it's here. The proof does not depend on the Pfaffian.


For a skew symmetric $A$, $\det(A)={\rm pfaffian}(A)^2$ where pfaffian is an integral polynomial function of the entries of the matrix $A$. For the case of an integer matrix the pfaffian is therefore an integer. Hence the result you want.